I sense a change coming.  At almost fifty years, for the first time, my life is about to get smaller.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  Part of me is exhausted managing 17 people at work, boostering sports at the high school, parenting one child, managing one household, meeting with my writing group, trying to keep my body from falling apart, keeping a semblance of friendships, and contributing to two extended families.  My life is always full.  

The opportunities to do more are endless.  I could be a DECA judge at the high school or volunteer for the PTA; apply to an executive MBA or CTO program; run the women’s network at work.  They need me, while my heart longs to see my parents more or have a leisurely meal with friends. 

And there are so many people.  Work people, school people, sports people, family people, friend people, writing people, and neighbor people.  People I want to see and people who want to see me.  People I am obligated to see and people who think I’m obligated to see them.  Annual people like doctors and dentists.  Periodic people like sports, writing, and camping friends.  I could have coffee and lunch every day and still feel like I’m missing out on relationship connections.  With every new hire, new project, new school, new activity, or new interest my rolodex grows.  (A dated metaphor, but some of you know what I’m talking about.)

The first end is less then three months away.  My role as driver has a deadline.  There is no indication that my daughter will do anything but pass her test, get her license, and never need me to take her anywhere ever again.  Okay, I’m exaggerating, but this feels like the first official life contraction.  Sure other parenting tasks end, but for the most part they are replaced.  I don’t have to change diapers or mash up food anymore, but now I learn the nuances of lip gloss versus lip balm and make pancakes for sleepovers.  But driving is a task that grows as kids get older.  They have more activities that are farther away and take longer.  More friends and more opportunities to leave the house.  It’s not all a burden, because the parental time in the car is special.  The car is a safe zone where you find out secrets, hopes, and dreams.  I won’t have that view into my kid’s life anymore.

Driving also makes my life bigger.  I made friends with parents hanging out on the sidelines when my daughter was little.  I found new trails to walk as her sports took her all over the state.  Now, I wave to my kid’s friends when I do the permit driver switch at school.  I’m a basketball booster parent because the coach saw me after practice, and we got to talk for a minute.  Suddenly those relationships, experiences and interactions will be gone – abdicated to my kiddo to maintain.  

I love being a parent, and recognize this is the beginning of the great metamorphosis from hands on to hands off.  From loving a child to loving an adult.  Not far out are pre-college camps, which she’ll do solo.  My best travel buddy’s first travels alone.  Then college.  That’s the big one.  In two and a half years I’ll go from living as a household of three to a household of two.  No games to attend.  No parent teacher conferences.  No back to school nights.  Suddenly priorities in my life will go back to being determined by me – not a school schedule or a sports schedule.  

What will I do with myself?  I used to do this cool thing called working out, and it made my body and mind feel amazing.  But I usually did that with friends, and how do I find friends who run if I’m not going to soccer practice and running stupid one-mile loops on the concrete path around the soccer fields?  I like watching sporting events, but how does that feel when you aren’t surrounded by the parents and friends of the kids playing?  What will provide the rhythm to my days and years?  Where will I meet new people?  And do I really have to just hang out with my husband every day, all day?  

Honestly, I’m ready for a little space.  Time to return to things I love.  My writing has suffered.  I miss my close relationships.  I long for interactions that don’t have to fit into a smidge of time scraped out between activities.  Maybe I’ll actually be able to respond to work emails again?  (Probably not.)  Maybe I’ll be able to nurture friendships who have gone stale, or build stronger friendships with people whose lives don’t quite match my rhythms now?  I long for complex foods with spices and heat that fill the house with smells my daughter despises.

Where does it end?  Friends are retiring and I see how hard it is to maintain relationships between working and retired people.  Your lives become different, so I’ll keep losing friends as they leave the workforce, but will we reconnect when I retire?  My parent’s friends keep dying and their world gets smaller with every loss.  Is this part of the natural cycle of life?  Your world expands to a peak of fullness beyond comfort and joy beyond maintainability and then contracts back down to a tiny family unit then a lonely end?  What happens on the other side of parenting, of work, of health?

I’m hoping there is a time of contentment between now and death.  A time to be thoughtful.  A time to breathe and focus on the things and people I love, including myself.  A time when I do what I do because it’s important and not urgent.  A chance to want to do things and no longer have to do things.  I hold this hope close to offset the fear as the losses loom.  I am ready for some time alone, but I am not ready to be lonely.